Java Chapter Lead - Core Banking DE Retail @ ING Hubs RO

Discover ING Hubs Romania

We started out in 2015 as ING’s software development hub – a distinct entity from ING Bank Romania – then steadily expanded our range to include more services and competencies.

Formerly known as ING Tech, as of 2022 we provide borderless services with bank-wide capabilities under the name of ING Hubs Romania and operate from two locations: Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca.

With the help of over 1600 engineers, risk, and operations professionals, we offer 130 services in tech, non-financial risk & compliance, audit and retail operations to 24 ING units worldwide.

Our tech capabilities remain the core of our business, with more than 1300 colleagues active in Data Management, TouchPoint Channels & Integration, Core Banking, and Global Products.

We enjoy a flexible way of working and a highly collaborative environment, where fair and constructive feedback is encouraged. Work ethics, honesty and knowledge sharing are key to our teams and we’re always looking for like-minded people.

Here’s a sneak peak of what our colleagues say about working within ING Hubs Romania:

At ING, your code reaches millions | 75% of our IT colleagues agree

The Mission

The role of the Java Chapter Lead is to manage, coach, lead (technical also) the Java Dev Engineers for a newly formed squad and also act as a contributor to the success of the project in the squad.

The team will be core part of the transformation program in ING Germany Retail responsible to build the key core banking components needed to successfully complete the program. Components like CBIL (Core Banking Interface Layer), RELI (restrictions and limitations) caching mechanism, restriction implementation on Fraud and Collection, etc).

Core Banking components lie at the heart of the Bank, and it is important for us to deliver high quality code, designed to run in a high availability/high performance context.

The Chapter Lead spends part of his/her time as a proficient Java Dev Engineer and the remaining with people management (including planning, coaching and review) and increasing the technical craftmanship of the Chapter members.

Your day to day

Even if you’ll start your day from the comfort of your home or drink your morning coffee in our office’s garden, your day will be quite similar when comes to tasks. Here are your daily responsibilities:

As a Chapter Lead, you will split your time between individual contributor activities and management / people leading activities: 

From an individual contributor point of view, you will:

• Define the technical solution for new developments and provide high level estimation (effort and time wise)
• Transform requirements into technical design and plan development activities with your team and the Product Owner
• Collaborate with the Core Banking Architects to refine and improve the technical architecture of the application
• Design and develop new functionalities and consolidate them with the appropriate automated, integration and regression tests
• Incorporate the Non-Functional Requirements into the application design itself, in order to meet the high demand on performance and reliability
• Perform peer code review for team members
• Knowledge Sharing within the team and contribute to specific Technical Guilds

From a managerial / people leader point of view, you will:           

• Coach the  team: act as performance coach for the team to continuously improve their knowledge and performance.
• Provide continuous feedback for team members (during regular 1:1s or dedicated sessions)
• Continuous improvement: help the team to improve performance by learning form mistakes and also find ways to bring lessons learned from other teams to your Chapter.
• Collaborate closely with the other Chapter Leads and IT Area Leads to improve the maturity of the processes and practices and to facilitate the knowledge sharing across teams.
• Training: Consolidate training opportunities for Chapter members according to their development needs.
• Performance management: review and approve KPI, Orange Code and Stretch Ambitions for the Chapter members.
• Recruiting: collaborate with HR and IT Area Lead to find and recruit the best engineers to fulfill both Chapter and squad’s needs.

What you’ll bring to the team

• Experience: Minimum 5 years of Java software engineering experience, designing and maintaining microservices (Spring Framework knowledge is a plus);
• Tech stack/ knowledge:
  • Mandatory:
  • Advanced knowledge of and proven proficiency in Java
  • Familiar with continuous delivery, continuous integration, code quality (Git, TFS, Checkmarx, Azure DevOps is a plus)
  • Experience in testing with dedicated frameworks (JUnit, Mockito, PowerMock), performance testing (Gatling)
  • Nice to have: 
  • Experience or affinity with IT Security concepts
  • Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, Openshift is a plus
  • Work experience in an Agile organization and proven Agile mind-set.
  • Comfortable with coaching and motivating team members.
• Foreign languages: English (advanced)
• Education: Bachelor’s Degree (or higher) in an IT related field

What’s in it for you

• Annual Performance Bonus up to two salaries
• Extra vacation days depending on the total length of working experience.
• Flextime – our own way of working
• Monthly budget on Benefit platform
• Growth opportunities
  • Defining a clear career path on short/ mid/ long term and identify the competencies you need to build/ develop to reach the next level: vertically – towards a managerial position or horizontally – towards an expert or architect level, locally or globally
  • Internal mobility is encouraged
  • Possibility to access International Short-Term Assignments or Long-Term Assignments
  • Upskilling/ reskilling programs
• Learning & Development opportunities
  • Annual training & certifications budget
  • Pluralsight & e-learning platforms
  • Management talk sessions (6/ year) – hands-on workshops led by specialized consultants on different areas (e.g. leading difficult conversations, sense of belonging, work engagement etc.)
  • First time manager trainings
  • Coaching and Mentoring programs
• CSR activities: tree planting, coding lessons for teenagers etc.